Main menu

Post navigation

Movie Review: ‘FDR: American Badass (2012)’

by Stacey Longo

Raunchy, politically incorrect, and hilariously ridiculous, FDR: American Badass (2012) is my favorite B-movie find this year. Barry Bostwick is indignantly absurd as the title character, who, in this historical version, contracts polio after being bitten by a werewolf. He goes on to win the presidential election, and finds he faces a much bigger threat: Naziwerewolves. FDR approaches this new problem with the same aplomb that he showed by getting the country out of the Depression: by ending Prohibition (to gain popularity and support) and going to war.

The jokes come every other line, and are offensive and disgusting. Never have I laughed so hard at a sight gag involving a vase and a bowel movement. Nobody is safe: polio victims, women, Southerners, lesbians, African-Americans . . . every race, creed, and nationality are skewered in this movie. While sharing a joint in the oval office, FDR and Abraham Lincoln (played by Kevin Sorbo, far off the path from his Hercules days) make jokes about people in wheelchairs, plays that end badly for presidents, and interracial sex. Have you ever wanted to hear Eleanor Roosevelt drop the f-bomb? Then this is exactly the movie for you.

FDR himself personally flies a fighter plane into war to kill Mussolini and Hitler. Winston Churchill mans the radio tower, telling FDR “If I wasn’t drunk and blind, I’d be up there with you right now.” It’s an explosive finish, and the president’s fate is uncertain, causing Eleanor to drop an s-bomb and even a g-d-bomb as she waits for word of her husband. I won’t spoil the end for you, but suffice to say, FDR lives up to the title’s moniker.

If you offend easily, don’t like jokes about people’s private parts, feces, racism, sexism, every other possible kind of -ism, and overall don’t find juvenile humor funny, then you may want to skip this one. But if the line “Hoover was all right. I’m sure they’ll name a dam or a vacuum cleaner after him someday” strikes you as uproarious, FDR: American Badass is right up your alley.